Why being made redundant could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you

Redundancy is a one of the more stressful things that could happen in your working life. There you are, happily working your permanent contract and then *poof* you’re suddenly surplus to requirements. It can be devastating, both for your finances and your morale. However, there are ways to turn this unexpected ending into an exciting new beginning.

Usually, when people are let go, there are certain redundancy entitlements to look forward to. If you’ve been with the company for over two years, you should be entitled to severance pay. This will be calculated according to your age, your salary and how long you’ve worked for the company. You should also make sure that your redundancy is fair. You can read more about this on the gov.uk website here.

Okay, so I’ve sorted out my rights and worked my redundancy notice period – now what?

Now it’s time to work out what you want from your working life. The comfort and security of a permanent contract is the main reason people cite for staying put in one job. But, as you’ve discovered, there are no guarantees in life, and a permanent job can be just as precarious as a temporary contract.

If you’ve got the skills and experience, this is a perfect time to evaluate whether or not you might be happier and more financially successful as a contractor.

Take advantage of the time and space redundancy has forced upon you and ask yourself some serious questions:

What kind of work do I want to be doing?

For practical and comfort reasons, most people don’t want to stray too far from the profession they’ve already chosen. It’s hard enough to find work and your experience is a major selling point.

That said, now is the time to take a look at the structure of the work you were doing and evaluate if that’s something to return to.

For instance, you might have started your working life in a more practical role and then got promoted up into management, where the bulk of your time is spent supervising the people who do the work you once enjoyed doing yourself. If you feel that you’re ill-suited to a managerial position then now is the ideal time to free yourself of the shackles of endless meetings, reports and administration.

Where do I want to put my time and attention?

One of our favourite freelancing podcasts, Back To Work, talks a lot about time and attention. Their basic argument is that these two things are the most valuable commodities a person can have. This is especially true for contractors who really do have a greater level of autonomy when it comes to organising the structure of their working life.

One of the main advantages of leaving your job to go into contracting is that you can more closely define how you’re going to spend your time. If you’ve got a family or a couple of side hustles (or both!) you probably felt extremely stretched working a permanent job on top of your commitments. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you decide to become a contractor, you can define your hours by selecting the kind of assignments that give you breathing space. Contracting work is much more well paid than a permanent position, so depending on your needs, you can maintain your former salary by working less or you can earn a lot more by working full time. Then, once you’ve accrued some savings you can take some much-needed time off to give your full attention to the important things in life.

Isn’t contracting unstable and scary?

There’s nothing more stressful than not being sure about how you’re going to get through the month. It’s a horrible feeling and carries with it attendant feelings of guilt, depression and powerlessness.

One of the more effective ways of making sure these extremely stressful emotions don’t overwhelm you is to plan and implement a way of regaining control of your life. Trialling a contract role after you’ve been made redundant is a risk-free way of seeing if you can make the contractor lifestyle work for you.

In fact, one of the perks of the contracting lifestyle is the speed with which you can acquire a gig. Unlike permanent employment, which might require several rounds of job interviews, you can apply for a contract assignment and be at work, earning money, within days.

Don’t I have to start a company?

No, no, no! You don’t have to do anything hasty when you’re dipping your toe into contracting. The main philosophy to live by at this point in your life is: see how you go. You’ve just been through what is, at best, an extremely difficult situation and it’s important that you don’t feel rushed or pressured into a life that you don’t want.

A more useful approach is viewing this time as a period of re-evaluation and experimentation. If you don’t want to source contract work entirely on your own, you can join an umbrella company and work with recruitment agencies to place you somewhere that works for you. The umbrella company will take care of all your admin and invoice chasing and, crucially, pay you a weekly wage even before you start bringing in the big bucks.

The most important thing is that you feel you’re working to improve your life, not just making the best of a bad situation. Once you’ve developed a rhythm, contracting really is a lucrative and exhilarating way to make your living. But see for yourself, take baby steps and maybe you’ll find that this was what you were meant to be doing all along.

Privacy Notice

Contractor Supermarket Limited Limited (hereafter called Contractor Supermarket Limited) respects your privacy and will process your data in a fair and lawful way. This privacy notice outlines the way in which Contractor Supermarket Limited collects, processes and shares your data and how long we retain it for.

Where we get our data from We will received your data from:
Directly from you via phone, email or on our website; Introducers; Suppliers; Analytics providers; Advertising networks; Search information providers; Companies house; Electoral register; Land registry and Other publicly available sources.

What we use the information forWe will use the data for:
Providing you with the services that you have requested from ourselves; Marketing and market research; Fraud prevention and processing payments to third parties.

Contractor Supermarket Limited may from time to time use aggregated, or redacted data for any purpose. Although this comes from your personal data it is not considered personal data, as it does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity, and we are free to use this at any time.

Legal basis for processing data

Contractor Supermarket Limited will process personal data for the purposes already stated on one or more of the following legal basis:

Consent – you have consented to us using your personal data by adding your details to our website and reading this privacy notice. You can withdraw consent at any time by directing an email to [email protected];

Contractual obligation– It is necessary for us to process your data to perform the contract between Contractor Supermarket Limited and yourself, or to take any necessary steps at your request prior to entering into this contract;

Legal obligations – we may need to process data in order to fulfil Legal obligations for example audit purposes;

Legitimate interests – we may use your personal data to operate, promote or improve our services or use your data for analytics or in order to protect our business.

Contractor Supermarket Limited will use your data for the purpose for which it was collected, unless we consider that we reasonably need to use it for another reason, if that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we would like to use your data for any other purposes we will notify you and provide explanation as to the legal basis under which we will be able to use your data.

Data retention
Contractor Supermarket Limited will only keep your data:
As long as necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations or As long as necessary to fulfil legal and regulatory obligations

Contractor Supermarket Limited will determine the length of time we can keep your data by considering the above and:

Potential risk from unauthorised use or disclosure; the purposes for which we process your data and If we can achieve the same results some other way without requiring your data

We may anonymise your data allowing us to retain for as long as we wish as it can no longer be associated to yourself.

Transfer of data
Contractor Supermarket Limited ensure that there are adequate jurisdictional data protection regulations in place should your data be transferred outside of the EEA(you will be informed if this is necessary), Your data is currently stored inside the EEA and Contractor Supermarket Limited have data protection policies, procedures and safeguards in place to protect the security of your data.

Your rights You have the right:

To be informed– we will tell you when we collect data what we are going to do with it, primarily through this privacy notice;

Of access – you can contact Contractor Supermarket Limited in righting to request the information that we hold about you;

To Erasure – you can ask for your information to be deleted( this is not an absolute right and will depend on any legal restrictions) We will keep a list of your wish to be deleted to ensure you do not end up in our database again at any future time;

To rectification – you can ask for any information to be amended if it is inaccurate or incomplete;

To restrict processing – tells us to stop processing your data but allows us to keep hold of it for other agreed purposes;

To data portability – to transfer information to another business at your request (most used for instance such as changing bank accounts);

To object – to use of your data for marketing and profiling for marketing purposes. Our Legitimate interests do not outweigh your rights and freedoms, therefore you can cease us processing based on our legitimate interests;

To withdraw consent – you may withdraw consent to the processing of your data at any time, you can withdraw this consent by emailing or calling the following: [email protected], +353 71 932 0877;

To complain – if Contractor Supermarket Limited do not satisfactorily deal with your complaint you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Data Security
Contractor Supermarket Limited take data protection responsibilities very seriously and have ensured that your data is treated fairly, lawfully and with the respect it deserves. Contractor Supermarket Limited have took adequate measures to protect your data from being accidently lost, used, accessed or disclosed in any way that has not been authorised . We have these procedures in place to prevent breaches, however we shall inform you and the relevant regulatory bodies should any data breach occur.